Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich. Vasily Chapaev - biography, information, personal life

130 years ago, on January 28 (February 9, New Style), 1887, a hero of the Civil War was born. There is probably no more unique person in Russian history than Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. His real life was short - he died at the age of 32, but posthumous fame surpassed all conceivable and inconceivable boundaries.

Among the real historical figures of the past, one cannot find another who would become an integral part of Russian folklore. What to talk about if one of the varieties of checkers games is called "chapaevka".

Chapai's childhood

When on January 28 (February 9), 1887, in the village of Budaika, Cheboksary district, Kazan province, the sixth child was born in the family of the Russian peasant Ivan Chapaev, neither mother nor father could even think about the glory that awaits their son.

Rather, they thought about the upcoming funeral - the baby, named Vasenka, was born seven months old, was very weak and, it seemed, could not survive.

However, the will to live turned out to be stronger than death - the boy survived and began to grow to the delight of his parents.

Vasya Chapaev did not even think about any military career - in poor Budaika there was a problem of everyday survival, there was no time for heavenly pretzels.

The origin of the family name is interesting. Chapaev's grandfather, Stepan Gavrilovich, was engaged in unloading timber and other heavy cargo floating down the Volga at the Cheboksary pier. And he often shouted “chap”, “chain”, “chap”, that is, “cling” or “hooking”. Over time, the word "chepay" stuck to him as a street nickname, and then became the official surname.

It is curious that the red commander himself subsequently wrote his last name precisely as “Chepaev”, and not “Chapaev”.

The poverty of the Chapaev family drove them in search of a better life to the Samara province, to the village of Balakovo. Here, Father Vasily had a cousin who acted as a patron of the parish school. The boy was assigned to study, hoping that over time he would become a priest.

Heroes are born of war

In 1908, Vasily Chapaev was drafted into the army, but a year later he was dismissed due to illness. Even before leaving for the army, Vasily started a family by marrying the 16-year-old daughter of a priest, Pelageya Metlina. Returning from the army, Chapaev began to engage in a purely peaceful carpentry trade. In 1912, while continuing to work as a carpenter, Vasily moved to Melekess with his family. Until 1914, three children were born in the family of Pelageya and Vasily - two sons and a daughter.

The whole life of Chapaev and his family was turned upside down by the First World War. Called up in September 1914, Vasily went to the front in January 1915. He fought in Volhynia in Galicia and proved himself to be a skilled warrior. Chapaev finished the First World War with the rank of sergeant major, being awarded the soldier's St. George's crosses of three degrees and the St. George medal.

In the autumn of 1917, the brave soldier Chapaev joined the Bolsheviks and unexpectedly showed himself to be a brilliant organizer. In the Nikolaevsky district of the Saratov province, he created 14 detachments of the Red Guard, which took part in the campaign against the troops of General Kaledin. On the basis of these detachments, in May 1918, the Pugachev brigade was created under the command of Chapaev. Together with this brigade, the self-taught commander recaptured the city of Nikolaevsk from the Czechoslovaks.

The fame and popularity of the young commander grew before our eyes. In September 1918, Chapaev led the 2nd Nikolaev division, which instilled fear in the enemy. Nevertheless, the steep temper of Chapaev, his inability to obey unquestioningly led to the fact that the command considered it a good thing to send him from the front to study at the Academy of the General Staff.

Already in the 1970s, another legendary red commander Semyon Budyonny, listening to jokes about Chapaev, shook his head: “I told Vaska: study, you fool, otherwise they will laugh at you! So you didn’t listen!”

Ural, Ural River, his grave is deep...

Chapaev really did not stay long at the academy, again going to the front. In the summer of 1919, he led the 25th Rifle Division, which quickly became legendary, as part of which he carried out brilliant operations against Kolchak's troops. On June 9, 1919, the Chapaevs liberated Ufa, on July 11 - Uralsk.

During the summer of 1919, Divisional Commander Chapaev managed to surprise the regular white generals with his talent as a commander. Both comrades-in-arms and enemies saw in him a real military nugget. Alas, Chapaev did not have time to really open up.

The tragedy, which is called Chapaev's only military mistake, occurred on September 5, 1919. Chapaev's division was rapidly advancing, breaking away from the rear. Parts of the division stopped to rest, and the headquarters was located in the village of Lbischensk.

On September 5, whites numbering up to 2000 bayonets under the command of General Borodin, having made a raid, suddenly attacked the headquarters of the 25th division. The main forces of the Chapayevites were 40 km from Lbischensk and could not come to the rescue.

The real forces that could resist the whites were 600 bayonets, and they entered into battle, which lasted six hours. Chapaev himself was hunted by a special detachment, which, however, did not succeed. Vasily Ivanovich managed to get out of the house where he lodged, gather about a hundred fighters who were retreating in disorder, and organize defense.

For a long time, conflicting information circulated about the circumstances of Chapaev's death, until in 1962 the daughter of division commander Claudius received a letter from Hungary in which two Chapaev veterans, Hungarians by nationality, who were personally present during the last minutes of the division commander's life, told what really happened.

During the battle with the whites, Chapaev was wounded in the head and stomach, after which four Red Army soldiers, having built a raft from the boards, managed to transport the commander to the other side of the Urals. However, Chapaev died of his wounds during the crossing.

The Red Army soldiers, fearing the mockery of the body by the enemies, buried Chapaev in the coastal sand, throwing branches at this place.

An active search for the grave of the divisional commander was not carried out immediately after the Civil War, because the version set forth by the commissar of the 25th division Dmitry Furmanov in his book “Chapaev” became canonical - as if the wounded divisional commander drowned while trying to swim across the river.

In the 1960s, Chapaev's daughter tried to search for her father's grave, but it turned out that this was impossible - the channel of the Urals changed its course, and the bottom of the river became the final resting place of the red hero.

Birth of a legend

Not everyone believed in Chapaev's death. Historians involved in the biography of Chapaev noted that among the Chapaev veterans there was a story that their Chapai swam out, was rescued by the Kazakhs, had typhoid fever, lost his memory and now works as a carpenter in Kazakhstan, remembering nothing about his heroic past.

Fans of the white movement like to attach great importance to the Lbischensky raid, calling it a major victory, but this is not so. Even the defeat of the headquarters of the 25th division and the death of its commander did not affect the overall course of the war - the Chapaev division continued to successfully destroy enemy units.

Not everyone knows that the Chapayevites avenged their commander on the same day, September 5th. General Borodin, commander of the white raid, who was victoriously passing through Lbischensk after the defeat of Chapaev's headquarters, was shot by a Red Army soldier Volkov.

Historians still cannot agree on what was actually the role of Chapaev as a commander in the Civil War. Some believe that he really played a prominent role, others believe that his image is exaggerated due to art.

Studying the life of Chapaev, you are surprised to find how closely the legendary hero is connected with other historical figures.

For example, the fighter of the Chapaev division was the writer Yaroslav Gashek, the author of The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik.

The head of the trophy team of the Chapaev division was Sidor Artemyevich Kovpak. In the Great Patriotic War, the mere name of this commander of a partisan unit will terrify the Nazis.

Major General Ivan Panfilov, whose division's resilience helped defend Moscow in 1941, began his military career as a platoon commander in an infantry company of the Chapaev division.

And the last. Water is fatally connected not only with the fate of division commander Chapaev, but also with the fate of the division.

The 25th Rifle Division existed in the ranks of the Red Army until the Great Patriotic War, took part in the defense of Sevastopol. It was the fighters of the 25th Chapaev division who stood to the last in the most tragic, last days of the defense of the city. The division was completely destroyed, and so that the enemy did not get its banners, the last surviving soldiers drowned them in the Black Sea.

Academy student

Chapaev's education, contrary to popular belief, was not limited to two years of parochial school. In 1918, he was enrolled in the military academy of the Red Army, where many fighters were "driven" to improve their general literacy and strategy training. According to the memoirs of his classmate, the peaceful student life weighed heavily on Chapaev: “Damn it! I'm leaving! To come up with such nonsense - fighting people at a desk! Two months later, he filed a report with a request to release him from this "prison" to the front. Several stories have been preserved about Vasily Ivanovich's stay at the academy. The first says that in a geography exam, in response to a question from an old general about the significance of the Neman River, Chapaev asked the professor if he knew about the significance of the Solyanka River, where he fought with the Cossacks. According to the second, in a discussion of the battle of Cannae, he called the Romans "blind kittens", telling the teacher, a prominent military theorist Sechenov: "We have already shown generals like you how to fight!"

Motorist

We all imagine Chapaev as a courageous fighter with a fluffy mustache, a naked saber and galloping on a dashing horse. This image was created by the national actor Boris Babochkin. In life, Vasily Ivanovich preferred cars to horses. Even on the fronts of the First World War, he received a serious wound in the thigh, so riding became a problem. So Chapaev became one of the first red commanders who moved to the car. He chose iron horses very meticulously. The first - the American "Stever", he rejected due to strong shaking, the red "Packard", which replaced him, also had to be abandoned - he was not suitable for military operations in the steppe. But the "Ford", which squeezed 70 miles off-road, the red commander liked. Chapaev also selected the best drivers. One of them, Nikolai Ivanov, was practically taken to Moscow by force and put as the personal driver of Lenin's sister, Anna Ulyanova-Elizarova.

"... It is curious that the red commander himself subsequently wrote his last name exactly as "Chepaev", and not "Chapaev".

I wonder how he was supposed to write his last name if he was Chepaev? Chapaev was made by Furmanov and the Vasiliev brothers. Before the release of the film on the screens of the country, on the monument to the commander in Samara it was written - Chepaev, the street was called Chepaevskaya, the city of Trotsk - Chepaevsk, and even the river Mocha was renamed Chepaevka. In order not to embarrass the minds of Soviet citizens in all these toponyms, "CHE" was changed to "CHA".

Chapai's childhood

When on January 28 (February 9), 1887 in the village of Budaika, Cheboksary district, Kazan province, in the family of a Russian peasant Ivan Chapaev the sixth child was born, neither mother nor father could even think about the glory that awaits their son.

Rather, they thought about the upcoming funeral - the baby, named Vasenka, was born seven months old, was very weak and, it seemed, could not survive.

However, the will to live was stronger than death - the boy survived and began to grow to the delight of his parents.

Vasya Chapaev did not even think about any military career - in poor Budaika there was a problem of everyday survival, there was no time for heavenly pretzels.

The origin of the family name is interesting. Chapaev's grandfather, Stepan Gavrilovich, was engaged in unloading timber and other heavy cargo floating down the Volga at the Cheboksary pier. And he often shouted “chap”, “chain”, “chap”, that is, “cling” or “hooking”. Over time, the word "chepay" stuck to him as a street nickname, and then became the official surname.

It is curious that the red commander himself subsequently wrote his last name precisely as “Chepaev”, and not “Chapaev”.

Heroes are born of war

In 1908, Vasily Chapaev was drafted into the army, but a year later he was dismissed due to illness. Even before leaving for the army, Vasily started a family by marrying the 16-year-old daughter of a priest Pelageya Metlina. Returning from the army, Chapaev began to engage in a purely peaceful carpentry trade. In 1912, while continuing to work as a carpenter, Vasily moved to Melekess with his family. Until 1914, three children were born in the family of Pelageya and Vasily - two sons and a daughter.

Vasily Chapaev with his wife. 1915 Photo: RIA Novosti

Ural, Ural River, his grave is deep...

Chapaev really did not stay long at the academy, again going to the front. In the summer of 1919, he led the 25th Rifle Division, which quickly became legendary, as part of which he carried out brilliant operations against the troops. Kolchak. On June 9, 1919, the Chapaevs liberated Ufa, on July 11 - Uralsk.

On September 5, whites numbering up to 2000 bayonets under the command General Borodin, having made a raid, suddenly attacked the headquarters of the 25th division. The main forces of the Chapayevites were 40 km from Lbischensk and could not come to the rescue.

Vasily Chapaev (center, sitting) with military commanders. 1918 Photo: RIA Novosti

Conflicting information circulated about the circumstances of Chapaev's death for a long time, until in 1962 the daughter of the division commander Claudia did not receive a letter from Hungary, in which two Chapaev veterans, Hungarians by nationality, who were personally present during the last minutes of the life of the divisional commander, told what really happened.

The Red Army soldiers, fearing the mockery of the body by the enemies, buried Chapaev in the coastal sand, throwing branches at this place.

An active search for the grave of the divisional commander was not carried out immediately after the Civil War, because the version set forth by the commissar of the 25th division became canonical Dmitry Furmanov in his book "Chapaev" - as if the wounded commander drowned, trying to swim across the river.

Birth of a legend

Not everyone knows that the Chapayevites avenged their commander on the same day, September 5th. General in command of the white raid Borodin, victoriously passing through Lbischensk after the defeat of Chapaev's headquarters, was shot dead by a Red Army soldier Volkov.

Painting by P. Vasiliev “V. I. Chapaev in battle. Photo: reproduction

Indeed, a book written by the former commissar of the 25th division brought Chapaev wide popularity. Dmitry Furmanov.

During life, the relationship between Chapaev and Furmanov could not be called simple, which, by the way, will be best reflected later in jokes. Chapaev's romance with Furmanov's wife Anna Steshenko led to the fact that the commissar had to leave the division. However, Furmanov's writing talent smoothed out personal contradictions.

But the real, boundless glory of Chapaev, Furmanov, and other now folk heroes overtook in 1934, when the Vasilyev brothers made the film Chapaev, which was based on Furmanov’s book and the memoirs of the Chapaevs.

Furmanov himself was not alive by that time - he died suddenly in 1926 from meningitis. And the author of the script for the film was Anna Furmanova, the wife of the commissar and the mistress of the divisional commander.

It is to her that we owe the appearance in the history of Chapaev of Anka the machine gunner. The fact is that in reality there was no such character. The prototype was the nurse of the 25th division Maria Popova. In one of the battles, the nurse crawled up to the wounded elderly machine gunner and wanted to bandage him, but the soldier, heated by the battle, pointed a revolver at the nurse and literally forced Maria to take a place behind the machine gun.

The directors, having learned about this story and having a task from Stalin to show in the film the image of a woman in the Civil War, they came up with a machine gunner. But on the fact that her name will be Anka, she insisted Anna Furmanova.

After the release of the film, both Chapaev, and Furmanov, and Anka the machine gunner, and orderly Petka (in real life - Peter Isaev, who really died in the same battle with Chapaev) forever went to the people, becoming an integral part of it.

Chapaev is everywhere

The life of Chapaev's children was interesting. The marriage of Vasily and Pelageya actually broke up with the outbreak of the First World War, and in 1917 Chapaev took the children from his wife and raised them himself, as far as military life allowed.

The eldest son of Chapaev, Alexander Vasilievich, followed in the footsteps of his father, becoming a professional military man. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, 30-year-old Captain Chapaev was the commander of a battery of cadets at the Podolsk Artillery School. From there he went to the front. Chapaev fought in a family way, not disgracing the honor of his famous father. He fought near Moscow, near Rzhev, near Voronezh, was wounded. In 1943, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, Alexander Chapaev participated in the famous battle of Prokhorovka.

Alexander Chapaev completed his military service with the rank of Major General, holding the position of Deputy Chief of Artillery of the Moscow Military District.

Younger son, Arkady Chapaev, became a test pilot, worked with himself Valery Chkalov. In 1939, 25-year-old Arkady Chapaev died while testing a new fighter.

Chapaev's daughter Claudia, made a party career and was engaged in historical research dedicated to her father. The true story of Chapaev's life became known largely thanks to her.

Studying the life of Chapaev, you are surprised to find how closely the legendary hero is connected with other historical figures.

For example, a fighter of the Chapaev division was writer Yaroslav Gashek- Author of The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik.

The head of the trophy team of the Chapaev division was Sidor Artemievich Kovpak. In the Great Patriotic War, the mere name of this commander of a partisan unit will terrify the Nazis.

Major General Ivan Panfilov, whose division's resilience helped defend Moscow in 1941, began his military career as a platoon commander of an infantry company of the Chapaev division.

And the last. Water is fatally connected not only with the fate of division commander Chapaev, but also with the fate of the division.

130 years ago, on February 9, 1887, the future hero of the Civil War, people's commander Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev was born. Vasily Chapaev fought heroically during the First World War, and during the Civil War he became a legendary figure, self-taught, who advanced to high command posts due to his own abilities in the absence of a special military education. He became a real legend when not only official myths, but also fiction firmly overshadowed the real historical figure.

Chapaev was born on January 28 (February 9), 1887 in the village of Budaika in Chuvashia. The ancestors of the Chapaevs have lived here since ancient times. He was the sixth child in a poor Russian peasant family. The child was weak, premature, but his grandmother came out. His father, Ivan Stepanovich, was a carpenter by profession, had a small plot of land, but his own bread was never enough, and therefore he worked as a cab driver in Cheboksary. Grandfather, Stepan Gavrilovich, was written in documents as Gavrilov. And the surname Chapaev came from the nickname - “chapay, scoop, cling” (“take”).

In search of a better life, the Chapaev family moved to the village of Balakovo, Nikolaevsky district, Samara province. Since childhood, Vasily worked hard, worked as a sex worker in a tea shop, as an assistant to an organ grinder, a merchant, and helped his father in carpentry. Ivan Stepanovich assigned his son to the local parochial school, the patron of which was his wealthy cousin. There were already priests in the Chapaev family, and the parents wanted Vasily to become a clergyman, but life decreed otherwise. In the church school, Vasily learned to write and read in syllables. Once he was punished for an offense - Vasily was put in a cold winter punishment cell in his underwear. Realizing an hour later that it was freezing, the child broke the window and jumped from the height of the third floor, breaking his arms and legs. Thus ended Chapaev's studies.

In the autumn of 1908, Vasily was drafted into the army and sent to Kyiv. But already in the spring of next year, apparently due to illness, Chapaev was dismissed from the army to the reserve and transferred to the first-class militia warriors. Before the First World War, he worked as a carpenter. In 1909, Vasily Ivanovich married Pelageya Nikanorovna Metlina, the daughter of a priest. Together they lived for 6 years, they had three children. From 1912 to 1914, Chapaev and his family lived in the city of Melekess (now Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk Region).

It is worth noting that Vasily Ivanovich's family life did not work out. Pelageya, when Vasily went to the front, went with her children to a neighbor. At the beginning of 1917, Chapaev drove to his native places and intended to divorce Pelageya, but was content with taking the children from her and returning them to their parents' house. Soon after that, he got along with Pelageya Kamishkertseva, the widow of Peter Kamishkertsev, a friend of Chapaev, who died from a wound during the fighting in the Carpathians (Chapaev and Kamishkertsev promised each other that if one of the two was killed, the survivor would take care of the friend's family). However, Kamishkertseva also cheated on Chapaev. This circumstance was revealed shortly before the death of Chapaev and dealt him a strong moral blow. In the last year of his life, Chapaev also had an affair with the wife of Commissar Furmanov, Anna (it is believed that it was she who became the prototype of Anka the machine gunner), which led to a sharp conflict with Furmanov. Furmanov scribbled denunciations against Chapaev, but later admitted in his diaries that he simply envied the legendary division commander.

With the outbreak of war, on September 20, 1914, Chapaev was called up for military service and sent to the 159th reserve infantry regiment in the city of Atkarsk. In January 1915, he went to the front as part of the 326th Belgorai Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Infantry Division from the 9th Army of the Southwestern Front. Was injured. In July 1915 he graduated from the training team, received the rank of junior non-commissioned officer, and in October - senior. Participated in the Brusilovsky breakthrough. He ended the war with the rank of sergeant major. He fought well, was wounded and shell-shocked several times, for his bravery he was awarded the St. George medal and the soldiers' St. George's crosses of three degrees. Thus, Chapaev was one of those soldiers and non-commissioned officers of the tsarist imperial army, who went through the cruelest school of the First World War and soon became the core of the Red Army.

Feldwebel Chapaev with his wife Pelageya Nikanorovna, 1916

Civil War

I met the February Revolution in a hospital in Saratov. September 28, 1917 joined the RSDLP (b). He was elected commander of the 138th infantry reserve regiment stationed in Nikolaevsk. On December 18, the district congress of Soviets elected the military commissar of the Nikolaevsky district. Organized the county Red Guard of 14 detachments. Participated in the campaign against General Kaledin (near Tsaritsyn), then in the spring of 1918 in the campaign of the Special Army against Uralsk. On his initiative, on May 25, a decision was made to reorganize the Red Guard detachments into two regiments of the Red Army: named after Stepan Razin and named after Pugachev, united in the Pugachev brigade under the command of Vasily Chapaev. Later he participated in battles with the Czechoslovaks and the People's Army, from whom Nikolaevsk was recaptured, renamed Pugachev.

September 19, 1918 was appointed commander of the 2nd Nikolaev division. In battles with whites, Cossacks and Czech interventionists, Chapaev showed himself to be a solid commander and an excellent tactician, skillfully assessing the situation and offering the best solution, as well as a personally brave man who enjoyed the authority and love of the fighters. During this period, Chapaev repeatedly personally led troops into the attack. According to the temporary commander of the 4th Soviet Army of the former General Staff, Major General A. A. Baltiysky, Chapaev’s “lack of general military education affects the technique of command and control and the lack of breadth to cover military affairs. Full of initiative, but uses it unbalanced, due to lack of military education. However, Comrade Chapaev clearly indicates all the data, on the basis of which, with an appropriate military education, both technology and a reasonable military scope will undoubtedly appear. The desire to get a military education in order to get out of the state of "military darkness", and then again join the ranks of the military front. You can be sure that the natural talents of Comrade Chapaev, combined with military education, will give bright results.

In November 1918, Chapaev was sent to the newly created Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army in Moscow to improve his education. He stayed at the Academy until February 1919, then arbitrarily dropped out of school and returned to the front. “Studying at the academy is a good and very important thing, but it’s a shame and a pity that the White Guards are beaten without us,” said the red commander. Chapaev noted about his studies: “I haven’t read about Hannibal before, but I see that he was an experienced commander. But I do not agree with his actions in many ways. He made many unnecessary reorganizations in front of the enemy and thereby revealed his plan to him, hesitated in his actions and did not show perseverance for the final defeat of the enemy. I had a case similar to the situation during the Battle of Cannes. It was in August, on the river N. We let up to two regiments of whites with artillery across the bridge to our bank, gave them the opportunity to stretch along the road, and then opened heavy artillery fire on the bridge and attacked from all sides. The stunned enemy did not have time to come to his senses, as he was surrounded and almost completely destroyed. The remnants of it rushed to the destroyed bridge and were forced to rush into the river, where most of them drowned. 6 guns, 40 machine guns and 600 prisoners fell into our hands. We achieved these successes thanks to the swiftness and surprise of our attack.

Chapaev was appointed Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Nikolaevsky district. Since May 1919 - brigade commander of the Special Alexander-Gai Brigade, since June - of the 25th Infantry Division. The division acted against the main forces of the Whites, participated in repelling the spring offensive of the armies of Admiral A.V. Kolchak, participated in the Buguruslan, Belebey and Ufa operations. These operations predetermined the crossing of the Ural Range by the Red troops and the defeat of Kolchak's army. In these operations, Chapaev's division acted on enemy communications and carried out detours. Maneuvering tactics became a feature of Chapaev and his division. Even white commanders singled out Chapaev and noted his organizational skills. A major success was the crossing of the Belaya River, which led to the capture of Ufa on June 9, 1919 and the further retreat of the White troops. Then Chapaev, who was on the front line, was wounded in the head, but remained in the ranks. For military distinctions he was awarded the highest award of Soviet Russia - the Order of the Red Banner, and his division was awarded the honorary revolutionary Red Banner.

Chapaev loved his fighters, and they paid him the same. His division was considered one of the best on the Eastern Front. In many ways, he was precisely the leader of the people, while possessing a real gift for military leadership, great energy and initiative that infected those around him. Vasily Ivanovich was a commander who strove to constantly learn in practice, directly in the course of battles, a simple man and cunning at the same time (this was the quality of a real representative of the people). Chapaev knew perfectly well the area of operations, located on the right flank of the Eastern Front, which was remote from the center.

After the Ufa operation, Chapaev's division was again transferred to the front against the Ural Cossacks. It was necessary to act in the steppe area, far from communications, with the superiority of the Cossacks in the cavalry. The struggle here was accompanied by mutual bitterness, uncompromising confrontation. Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev died on September 5, 1919 as a result of a deep raid by the Cossack detachment of Colonel N. N. Borodin, which culminated in an unexpected attack on the city of Lbischensk, located in the rear, where the headquarters of the 25th division was located. Chapaev's division, which broke away from the rear and suffered heavy losses, settled down to rest in the Lbischensk region in early September. Moreover, the headquarters of the division, the supply department, the tribunal, the Revolutionary Committee and other divisional institutions were located in Lbischensk itself. The main forces of the division were removed from the city. The command of the White Ural Army decided to undertake a raid on Lbischensk. On the evening of August 31, a select detachment under the command of Colonel Nikolai Borodin left the village of Kalyon. On September 4, Borodin's detachment secretly approached the city and hid in the reeds in the backwaters of the Urals. Aerial reconnaissance did not report this to Chapaev, although it could not have detected the enemy. It is believed that due to the fact that the pilots sympathized with the whites (after the defeat, they went over to the side of the whites).

At dawn on September 5, the Cossacks attacked Lbischensk. A few hours later the battle was over. Most of the Red Army was not ready to attack, panicked, was surrounded and surrendered. It ended in a massacre, all the prisoners were killed - in batches of 100-200 people on the banks of the Urals. Only a small part was able to break through to the river. Among them was Vasily Chapaev, who gathered a small detachment and organized resistance. According to the testimony of the General Staff of Colonel M. I. Izergin: “Chapaev himself with a small detachment, with whom he took refuge in one of the houses on the banks of the Urals, had to survive the longest of all with artillery fire.”

During the battle, Chapaev was seriously wounded in the stomach, he was transported to the other side on a raft. According to the story of Chapaev's eldest son, Alexander, two Hungarian Red Army soldiers put the wounded Chapaev on a raft made from half a gate and transported him across the Ural River. But on the other side it turned out that Chapaev died from blood loss. The Red Army soldiers buried his body with their hands in the coastal sand and threw reeds so that the whites would not find the grave. This story was subsequently confirmed by one of the participants in the events, who in 1962 sent a letter from Chapaev's daughter from Hungary with a detailed description of the death of the Red Divisional Commander. The investigation conducted by the whites also confirms these data. From the words of the captured Red Army soldiers, “Chapaev, leading a group of Red Army soldiers towards us, was wounded in the stomach. The wound turned out to be so severe that after that he could no longer lead the battle and was transported across the Urals on the boards ... he [Chapaev] was already on the Asian side of the river. Ural died from a wound in the stomach. During this battle, the commander of the whites, Colonel Nikolai Nikolaevich Borodin, also died (he was posthumously promoted to the rank of major general).

There are other versions of Chapaev's fate. Thanks to Dmitry Furmanov, who served as a commissar in Chapaev's division and wrote the novel "Chapaev" about him and especially the film "Chapaev", the version of the death of the wounded Chapaev in the waves of the Urals became popular. This version arose immediately after the death of Chapaev and was, in fact, the fruit of an assumption, based on the fact that Chapaev was seen on the European coast, but he did not sail to the Asian coast, and his corpse was not found. There is also a version that Chapaev was killed in captivity.

According to one version, Chapaev eliminated his own as a disobedient people's commander (in modern terms, a "field commander"). Chapaev had a conflict with L. Trotsky. According to this version, the pilots, who were supposed to inform the divisional commander about the approach of the Whites, were following the order of the high command of the Red Army. The independence of the “red field commander” irritated Trotsky; he saw an anarchist in Chapaev who could disobey orders. Thus, it is possible that Trotsky "ordered" Chapaev. White acted as a tool, nothing more. During the battle, Chapaev was simply shot dead. According to a similar scheme, Trotsky and other red commanders were eliminated, who, not understanding international intrigues, fought for the common people. A week before Chapaev, the legendary division commander Nikolai Shchors was killed in Ukraine. A few years later, in 1925, the famous Grigory Kotovsky was also shot dead under unclear circumstances. In the same year, 1925, Mikhail Frunze was killed on the surgical table, also by order of Trotsky's team.

Chapaev lived a short (he died at 32), but a bright life. As a result, the legend of the red divisional commander arose. The country needed a hero whose reputation was not tarnished. People watched this film dozens of times, all Soviet boys dreamed of repeating Chapaev's feat. Subsequently, Chapaev entered folklore as the hero of many popular jokes. In this mythology, the image of Chapaev was distorted beyond recognition. In particular, according to jokes, he is such a cheerful, rollicking person, a drunkard. In fact, Vasily Ivanovich did not drink alcohol at all, tea was his favorite drink. The orderly carried a samovar for him everywhere. Arriving at any location, Chapaev immediately began to drink tea and, at the same time, be sure to invite the locals. So the glory of a very good-natured and hospitable person was established behind him. One more moment. In the film, Chapaev is a dashing horseman, rushing at the enemy with a saber drawn. In fact, Chapaev did not feel much love for horses. I preferred a car. The widespread legend that Chapaev fought against the famous General V. O. Kappel is also untrue.

Vasily Chapaev was born on January 28 (February 9), 1887 in the village of Budaika, Cheboksary district, Kazan province, into a Russian peasant family. Vasily was the sixth child in the family of Ivan Stepanovich Chapaev (1854-1921).

Some time later, in search of a better life, the Chapaev family moved to the village of Balakovo, Nikolaevsky district, Samara province. Ivan Stepanovich assigned his son to the local parochial school, whose patron was his wealthy cousin. There were already priests in the Chapaev family, and the parents wanted Vasily to become a clergyman, but life decreed otherwise.

In the autumn of 1908, Vasily was drafted into the army and sent to Kyiv. But already in the spring of next year, for unknown reasons, Chapaev was dismissed from the army to the reserve and transferred to the first-class militia warriors. According to the official version, due to illness. The version about his political unreliability, because of which he was transferred to the warriors, is not confirmed by anything. Before the World War, he did not serve in the regular army. He worked as a carpenter. From 1912 to 1914, Chapaev and his family lived in the city of Melekess (now Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk Region) on Chuvashskaya Street. Here his son Arkady was born. With the outbreak of war, on September 20, 1914, Chapaev was called up for military service and sent to the 159th reserve infantry regiment in the city of Atkarsk.

Chapaev went to the front in January 1915. He fought in the 326th Belgorai Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Infantry Division in the 9th Army of the Southwestern Front in Volyn and Galicia. Was injured. In July 1915 he graduated from the training team, received the rank of junior non-commissioned officer, and in October - senior. He ended the war with the rank of sergeant major. For his bravery, he was awarded the St. George medal and the soldiers' St. George's crosses of three degrees.

I met the February Revolution in a hospital in Saratov; September 28, 1917 joined the RSDLP (b). He was elected commander of the 138th Infantry Reserve Regiment stationed in Nikolaevsk. On December 18, the district congress of Soviets elected the military commissar of the Nikolaevsky district. In this position, he led the dispersal of the Nikolaev district zemstvo. Organized the county Red Guard of 14 detachments. Participated in the campaign against General Kaledin (near Tsaritsyn), then (in the spring of 1918) in the campaign of the Special Army against Uralsk. On his initiative, on May 25, a decision was made to reorganize the Red Guard detachments into two regiments of the Red Army: them. Stepan Razin and them. Pugachev, united in the Pugachev brigade under the command of Chapaev. Later he participated in battles with the Czechoslovaks and the People's Army, from whom Nikolaevsk was recaptured, renamed Pugachev in honor of the brigade. On September 19, 1918 he was appointed commander of the 2nd Nikolaev division. From November 1918 to February 1919 - at the Academy of the General Staff. Then - the commissioner of internal affairs of the Nikolaev district. Since May 1919 - brigade commander of the Special Alexander-Gai Brigade, since June - head of the 25th Infantry Division, which participated in the Bugulma and Belebeev operations against Kolchak's army. Under the leadership of Chapaev, this division occupied Ufa on June 9, 1919, and Uralsk on July 11. During the capture of Ufa, Chapaev was wounded in the head by a burst from an aircraft machine gun.

Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev died on September 5, 1919 as a result of a deep raid by the Cossack detachment of Colonel N. N. Borodin (1192 soldiers with 9 machine guns and 2 guns), which culminated in an unexpected attack on the well-guarded (about 1000 bayonets) and located in the deep rear of the city of Lbishensk (now the village of Chapaev, West Kazakhstan region of Kazakhstan), where the headquarters of the 25th division was located.

In 1908, Chapaev met 16-year-old Pelageya Metlina, the daughter of a priest. On July 5, 1909, 22-year-old Vasily Ivanovich Chepaev married a 17-year-old peasant woman from the village of Balakovo, Pelageya Nikanorovna Metlina (State Archive of the Saratov Region F.637. Op.7. D.69. L.380ob-309.). Together they lived for 6 years, they had three children. Then the First World War began, and Chapaev went to the front. Pelageya lived in the house of his parents, then went with the children to a neighbor-conductor.

At the beginning of 1917, Chapaev drove to his native places and intended to divorce Pelageya, but was content with taking the children from her and returning them to their parents' house. Soon after that, he got along with Pelageya Kamishkertseva, the widow of Peter Kamishkertsev, a friend of Chapaev, who died from a wound during the fighting in the Carpathians (Chapaev and Kamishkertsev promised each other that if one of the two was killed, the survivor would take care of the friend's family). In 1919, Chapaev settled Kamishkertseva with their children (Chapaev's children and Kamishkertsev's daughters Olimpiada and Vera) in the village. Klintsovka at the artillery warehouse of the division, after which Kamishkertseva cheated on Chapaeva with the head of the artillery warehouse Georgy Zhivolozhinov. This circumstance was revealed shortly before the death of Chapaev and dealt him a strong moral blow. In the last year of his life, Chapaev also had affairs with a certain Tanka the Cossack (the daughter of a Cossack colonel, with whom he was forced to part under the moral pressure of the Red Army soldiers) and the wife of Commissar Furmanov, Anna Nikitichnaya Steshenko, which led to an acute conflict with Furmanov and was the reason for recall Furmanov from the division shortly before the death of Chapaev
Chapaev, according to her, immediately went back to the division headquarters. Soon after that, Pelageya decided to make peace with her common-law husband and went to Lbischensk, taking little Arkady with her. However, she was not allowed to see Chapaev. On the way back, Pelageya drove into the white headquarters and reported information about the small number of forces standing in Lbischensk. According to K. Chapaeva, she heard Pelageya boast about this already in the 1930s. However, it should be noted that since the population of Lbischensk and its environs, which consisted of the Ural Cossacks, fully sympathized with the whites and maintained contact with them, the latter were aware of the situation in the city in detail. Therefore, even if the story of the betrayal of Pelageya Kamishkertseva is true, the information she reported was not of particular value. This report is not mentioned in the documents of the White Guards.

Chapaev's division, which broke away from the rear and suffered heavy losses, settled down to rest in the Lbishensk region in early September, and in Lbishensk itself the division headquarters, supply department, tribunal, revolutionary committee and other divisional institutions with a total number of almost two thousand people were located. In addition, in the city there were about two thousand mobilized peasant wagon trains who did not have any weapons. The protection of the city was carried out by a divisional school in the amount of 600 people - it was these 600 active bayonets that were Chapaev's main force at the time of the attack. The main forces of the division were at a distance of 40-70 km from the city.

The Lbishchensky raid of the detachment of Colonel Borodin began on the evening of August 31. On September 4, Borodin's detachment secretly approached the city and hid in the reeds in the backwaters of the Urals. Aerial reconnaissance (4 airplanes) did not report this to Chapaev, apparently due to the fact that the pilots sympathized with the whites (after Chapaev's death, they all flew over to the side of the whites). At dawn on September 5, the Cossacks attacked Lbischensk. Panic and chaos began, part of the Red Army crowded on Cathedral Square, was surrounded and captured there; others were taken prisoner or killed while clearing the city; only a small part managed to break through to the Ural River. All prisoners were executed - they were shot in batches of 100-200 people on the banks of the Urals. Among those captured after the battle and shot was the divisional commissar P.S. Baturin, who tried to hide in the furnace of one of the houses. Colonel Motornov, Chief of Staff of the White Ural Army, describes the results of this operation as follows:

According to documents, to capture Chapaev, Borodin allocated a special platoon under the command of the lieutenant Belonozhkin, who, led by a captured Red Army soldier, attacked the house where Chapaev lodged, but missed him: the Cossacks attacked the Red Army soldier who appeared from the house, mistaking him for Chapaev himself, in while Chapaev jumped out the window and managed to escape. During the flight, he was wounded in the arm by Belonozhkin's shot. Having collected and organized the Red Army soldiers, who fled to the river in a panic, Chapaev organized a detachment of about a hundred people with a machine gun and was able to throw back Belonozhkin with him, who did not have machine guns. However, he was wounded in the stomach while doing so. According to the story of Chapaev's eldest son, Alexander, two Hungarian Red Army soldiers put the wounded Chapaev on a raft made from half a gate and ferried him across the Urals. But on the other side it turned out that Chapaev died from blood loss. The Hungarians buried his body with their hands in the coastal sand and threw reeds so that the Cossacks would not find the grave. This story was subsequently confirmed by one of the participants in the events, who in 1962 sent a letter from Chapaev's daughter from Hungary with a detailed description of the death of the commander. White investigation also confirms these data; from the words of the captured Red Army soldiers, “Chapaev, leading a group of Red Army soldiers towards us, was wounded in the stomach. The wound turned out to be so severe that after that he could no longer lead the battle and was transported across the Urals on the boards ... he [Chapaev] was already on the Asian side of the river. Ural died from a wound in the stomach. The place where Chapaev was supposedly buried is now flooded - the riverbed has changed.

Memory:
The Chapaevka River and the city of Chapaevsk in the Samara Region were named in his honor.
In 1974, the Chapaev Museum was opened in Cheboksary near the place of his birth.
In the city of Pugachev, Saratov Region, there is a house-museum where Vasily Ivanovich lived and worked in 1919. In this city, the Chapaevskaya 25th Rifle Division was formed.
In the village of Krasny Yar, Ufimsky district of the Republic of Bashkortostan, there is a house-museum named after the 25th rifle division in the building that housed the division headquarters and a field hospital during the liberation of Ufa.
There is a museum of V. I. Chapaev located in the village of Lbischenskaya (now the village of Chapaev, West Kazakhstan region) at the site of the last battle of the commander, has existed since the 1920s. It is located in the house where the headquarters of the 25th Infantry Division was located.
There is a house-museum of V. I. Chapaev located in the city of Uralsk (West Kazakhstan region)
There is also a house-museum of V. I. Chapaev in the city of Balakovo, Saratov region (Address of the directorate: 413865, Saratov region, Balakovo, Chapaeva street, 110). Founded in 1948 as a branch of the Pugachev memorial house-museum of V. I. Chapaev. In 1986 it became a branch of the Saratov Regional Museum of Local Lore. The initiators of the creation of the museum in the parental home of the Chapaevs were the Chapaevs and the red partisans of the city of Balakovo and the region. Since this particular city is the second homeland of the commander of the Red Army V. I. Chapaev, famous during the Civil War. It was in the Sirotskaya Sloboda (the former outskirts of the city of Balakovo), where the house-museum of V.I. Chapaev is now located, that his childhood and youth passed, the formation of his personality. This memorial museum shows the peaceful period of the life of the famous commander.
In St. Petersburg, at school No. 146 of the Kalininsky district, the museum named after V.I. Chapaev was created by teachers and students in the 1970s. The tour guides were groups of students. Meetings were held with veterans of the legendary 25th division. Performances were held, the actors of which were also students of the school.
In honor of Vasily Ivanovich, a double-deck river cruise ship of project 305 was named.
Large anti-submarine ship (BPK) of project 1134A type "Kronstadt"

Legendary Soviet military leader, "people's commander" of the Civil War, commander of the 25th Infantry Division.

Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev (Chepaev) was born on January 28 (February 9), 1887. He was the sixth child in the family of Ivan Stepanovich Chepaev (1854-1921), a peasant in the village of Budaiki, Cheboksary district, Kazan province (now within the city).

In his youth, V. I. Chapaev worked for hire with his father and brothers (carpenter), he was able to learn to read and write. In the autumn of 1908 he was called up for military service, but was soon transferred to the reserve.

With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, V. I. Chapaev was again mobilized. In 1915, he graduated from the training team, received the rank of junior non-commissioned officer, in October of the same year - senior. In 1915-1916, V. I. Chapaev fought in Galicia, Volyn and Bukovina, was wounded three times. For courage and courage shown in battles, V. I. Chapaev was awarded three St. George's crosses and the St. George medal, and was also promoted to sergeant major.

V. I. Chapaev met the February Revolution of 1917 in the Saratov hospital, later moved to Nikolaevsk (now the city). In the summer of 1917, he was elected a member of the regimental committee; in December of the same year, at a garrison meeting of the 138th infantry reserve regiment in Nikolaevsk, the soldiers elected him regimental commander.

In September 1917, V. I. Chapaev joined the RSDLP (b). With the establishment of Soviet power in January 1918, he became the commissar of internal affairs of the Nikolaevsky district. At the beginning of the year, he formed a Red Guard detachment in the city and participated in the suppression of peasant uprisings in the district. From May 1918, V. I. Chapaev commanded a brigade in battles against the Ural White Cossacks and units of the Czechoslovak Corps, from September 1918 he was the head of the 2nd Nikolaev division.

From November 1918 to January 1919, V. I. Chapaev studied at the Academy of the General Staff in , then, at his personal request, he was sent to the front and appointed to the 4th Army as commander of the Special Alexander-Gai Brigade, which distinguished itself in battles near the village of Slamihinskaya (now the village of Zhalpaktal In Kazakhstan).

From April 1919, V. I. Chapaev commanded the 25th Infantry Division, which distinguished itself in the Buguruslan, Belebeev and Ufa operations during the counteroffensive of the Eastern Front against the admiral's troops. On July 11, 1919, the 25th division under the command of V.I. Chapaev released the city of Uralsk (now in Kazakhstan). In the battles to the north, the division commander was wounded. For the successful leadership of units and formations in battles with the enemy and the valor and courage shown at the same time, V. I. Chapaev was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

In July 1919, the 25th Rifle Division released the city of Uralsk besieged by the White Cossacks. In August 1919, parts of the division took the city of Lbischensk, Ural Region (now the village of Chapaev in Kazakhstan) and the village of Sakharnaya. During the fighting, V. I. Chapaev showed high organizational and military abilities, was distinguished by a strong will, determination and courage.

At dawn on September 5, 1919, the White Guards suddenly attacked the headquarters of the 25th division, located in Lbischensk. The Chapayevites, led by their commander, courageously fought against the superior forces of the enemy. In this battle, V.I. Chapaev died. The circumstances of his death have not been fully elucidated. According to the most common version, the wounded commander tried to swim across the Ural River, but died under enemy fire.

The legendary image of V. I. Chapaev, the textbook "people's commander" of the Civil War, was largely formed thanks to the novel by the former military commissar of the 25th division D. A. Furmanov "Chapaev" (1923) and the film of the same name based on it (1934).

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